The stories behind the buildings, statues and other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating.

Monday, April 1, 2013

The Lost 1847 Winfield Scott Mansion -- 93rd and Park Avenue

By 1882 the once-rural countryside was filling with homes. But the Scott mansion still retained its gardens including the gazebo and other out buildings -- photo from the Collection of the Museum of the City of New York

Although the time when Manhattan’s gentry built sprawling
country estates around and north of Greenwich Village was mostly gone by the
1840s; the city had not reached much farther than 40th Street.The land that sat fifty blocks further north was still
verdant and rural.

On June 8, 1845 General Winfield Scott was at West Point
supervising an examination.Word came to
him that General Andrew Jackson had died at his home, the Hermitage, far to the
south near Nashville.Of the nation’s
military officers, Jackson was among the most respected by Scott.

General Scott dismissed the cadets saying “I suspend the
further labors of this examination till-morrow, in honor of an event
interesting to all Americans.A great
man has fallen among us.Andrew Jackson,
after filling the world with his fame, and crowning his country with glory,
departed this life on the 8th instant.”

General Winfield Scott had been the Commanding General of the
United States Army since 1841.A hero of
the War of 1812, he began work on his own country seat not long after Jackson’s
death.That event, perhaps, still
haunted him for the mansion would be strikingly similar to the former President’s.And it would be called The Hermitage.

Located at what would become the northwest corner of Park
Avenue and 93rd Street, the Greek Revival house was defined by the two-story
veranda supported by great square brick columns.A classic temple pediment stretched the width
of the structure, recalling the great plantation homes of the South.Expansive gardens wrapped the property,
affording relief from hot New York summers.

As the mansion was being built the Mexican American War
broke out and Scott, known as Old Fuss and Feathers to his troops because of
his insistence on military discipline and appearance, was called away.It was the first event in a series that would
prevent the general and his wife from ever using their new country estate.

The Hermitage was completed in 1847 and was, apparently,
leased out for several years.After the
war Scott was so popular that the Whig
Party snubbed its own incumbent, Millard Filmore, and nominated the general as
its presidential candidate.He was
soundly defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce and returned to New York in 1853—but
not to his grand mansion at 93rd Street.

The intensely popular general’s name would be forever linked
to the house, however.Only
occasionally was the name “The Hermitage” attached to it; instead it was
generally known as the General Scott Mansion.

As the turn of the century approached, the once-rural neighborhood
was filling with high-end dwellings as Manhattan’s millionaires forged ahead of
the commercial district.In 1899 J. G.
Feldmann owned the mansion that was home to both his family and that of Edward
W. C. Saling.On February 1 of that year
12-year old Martha Saling woke to the smell of smoke.She wakened her parents who discovered that
the rear of the house was on fire.

An overheated furnace had caused the blaze which was nearly
out of control.“The flames had gained
considerable headway, and the occupants of the house were forced to retreat to
the roof of the piazza, the stairways being ablaze,” reported The New York
Times.Down the block at No. 71 East 93rd
Street lived wealthy banker Henry Seligman who rushed up the street with a
ladder.With his help the Feldmann
family reached the street from the roof.

By the time firemen extinguished the fire, damages to the
house which The Times called “one of the landmarks of the upper east side,”
amounted to $2,000—nearly $50,000 today.

In the meantime, the Ursuline Community of St. Teresa had
been incorporated in 1881 on Henry Street.The Ursuline nuns had been invited to St. Teresa’s parish by Rev. James
Boyce in 1873 to open a girls’ academy.Before the end of the year in 1899 the nuns would take possession of
Feldmann’s fire-damaged house. Along with its new location, in 1900
the school’s name changed.St. Teresa’s Ursuline Academy New-York became
the Ursuline Academy.

Even the lives of nuns are sometimes touched by crime and
sin and so it was on February 15, 1906.The previous evening the Academy hosted a fair which grossed about $800 in
cash and checks.Mother Superior Ursula
took the receipts to her room where she placed the money in an iron box.

Around 11:00 the next morning a workman appeared who said he
had to repair the skylights on the top floor where the sisters lived.He entered Mother Ursula’s room and,
according to The Evening World the following week, “broke open the box and took
the $240, together with checks to the value of about $700.The checks he threw under the bed.”

The Mother Superior suspected an inside job.“There is something mysterious about the
robbery,” she told reporters.“Some one
in the house must have co-operated with the thief.I believe he was concealed in my room when I
placed the money in the iron box on Thursday morning.”She explained that “I invariably carry large
sums of money when I receive them, in my dress.I used the iron box for the first time on Thursday.”

The Evening World ran the headline “Nuns Robbed by Aid of a
Spy.”

The neighborhood continued to develop, causing Charles H.
Schnelle to reminisce in the souvenir book he wrote in 1909 for the House and
Real Estate Owners’ Association.“At 93d
street and Park avenue is still standing the General Winfield Scott mansion,
erected in 1847.Here and there are
still to be seen remnants of summer homes and farms, reminding us of the days
when Yorkville was merely a suburb, persons from the lower section of the city
coming here to picnic in parks and to spend a day in the country.”

In 1911, now home of the Ursuline Academy, the mansion was diminished by modern buildings closing in. photo NYPL Collection

The days of the old mansion were numbered, however.Two years later on August 4 The New York
Times reported that “The Ursuline Sisters of St. Teresa have received an offer
for their property at the northwest corner of Ninety-third Street and Park Avenue,
which will probably be accepted, as the sisters are preparing to remove the
school to the Ursuline Provinculate at Grand Boulevard and 165th Street.”

Indeed the nuns accepted the offer and six months later in February 1912 The
Times noted that “Robert Shaw Minturn has joined the uptown Park Avenue residential
colony by purchasing…from the Ursuline Sisters of St. Theresa a large plot on
the northwest corner of Park Avenue and Ninety-third Street, which he intends
to improve with two handsome dwellings.”

The Times casually mentioned that “The Park Avenue structure
is an old wooden house ornamented with tall columns in the Colonial style, and
is one of the oldest structures in the locality.It is one of the few remaining wooden houses
on the avenue south of the Harlem section.”There was not a word of protest regarding the loss of the historic
structure; rather the newspaper went on to describe the planned mansions to
replace it.

“The location is admirably situated for residential
purposes, being at the highest point of Park Avenue…Plans are now being
prepared by Howells & Stokes for improving the Ninety-third Street plot,
with two residences, one for Mr. Minturn and the other for his mother, Mrs.
Robert B. Minturn.”

The Hermitage was demolished with no public outcry nor
published regret.While Robert Shaw
Minturn did erect his own mansion on 93rd Street, his mother’s Park
Avenue house was never realized.Instead, Francis F. Palmer purchased the lot and in 1917 began
construction of his handsome neo-Federal home designed by Delano & Aldrich.